A commonly recognized problem associated with barbecue grills and the like is the need to provide a fairly uniform heat source for the food items to be grilled. That is, the heat source should be uniform as to temperature, as to cooking exposure time and as to distance from the food items to be grilled. The advent of the rotisserie cooking unit has helped in providing such uniformity in the cooking process. Accordingly, the use of rotisserie cooking units is well known. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,403,595 to Maesk and 3,319,562 to Turcott et al.
These rotisserie cooking units, however, typically utilize a non-detachable chain driven spit which can, in the experience of this inventor, prove dangerous to fingers and hands. Such a configuration tends to cause a "jerking" motion of the spit when the top heavy part of the meat which is being cooked on the spit comes over top center. This, in turn, can result in the meat becoming loosened on the spit. It may also result in a hesitation in the cooking cycle at the bottom center of the weight offset and burned, or undercooked, meat. It also can result in the stretching of the chain drive which affects overall longevity of the unit. Most importantly, the chain drive for the spits is a permanent configuration. These rotisserie units are also configured so as not to be very portable and certainly are not very compact when not in use.